Podcast

Ep 17: Riding the wave of exponential change – Kaila Colbin

About this conversationTo wrap up our ‘Antidisciplinary Future’ speaker series, we have partnered with SingularityU Australia Summit and Pause Fest to bring you the future.

What do nanotechnology, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, and robotics have in common, and, more importantly, what do they have to do with you?

Join Singularity University’s Australian Ambassador for a startling look at the dramatic implications of exponential technologies, and some insight into how we might better prepare ourselves to adapt and thrive in a dynamically changing world.

More About KailaKaila Colbin is the New Zealand and Australian Ambassador for Singularity University. She is also the Co-Founder and Chair of the non-profit Ministry of Awesome, Curator of TEDxChristchurch and TEDxScottBase, Chair of the New York-based Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, Deputy Chair of CORE Education Ltd, a board member of Canterbury Development Corporation Holdings Ltd and a Certified ExO Consultant with ExO Works.

Conversation Notes

How is it possible that an artificial intelligence system predicted that Donald Trump would win the US election weeks beforehand?

The doubling curve of computer price-performance explains why today’s smartphones have access to more information than Bill Clinton had the entire time he was president.

It’s not just about computing. This doubling phenomenon applies to any technology once it becomes ‘information enabled’.

The difference in something following a linear trajectory and something following a doubling curve is insane. Our brains are not wired for this.

It is not about what technology is available at any given point in time. That is not the key thing. The key thing is how technology changes over time.

What has to come together for mass uptake of the technology? It’s not just the technology that has to be ready, the regulatory environment has to be ready, the market appetite has to be ready, the investment environment has to be ready. When all those things come together, that’s when we hit that inflection point.

These technologies are now starting to converge. So now we have to consider what happens when something like exponential progression in AI hits exponential in something like robotics or biotechnology. Or bioengineering converges with 3D printing at the atomic scale? When we can literally print matter atom by atom? What happens is that everything accelerates even faster.

Quote“Every new computer starts at the sum total of all the knowledge of all the previous computers – which is why these things progress exponentially. We’re continually using better tools to build better tools. So, that’s the terror, but it is also the opportunity.”

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